


you forgive me

by Massiel



Series: a very strange, enchanted boy [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Destiny, Fate, Gen, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, The Light Side of the Force, Written Pre-Episode IX, balance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Massiel/pseuds/Massiel
Summary: Ben Solo never had a chance. But the Force will give him choices.





	you forgive me

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last entry in my "Skywalkers Being Pawns In A Cosmic Plan" series. You'll note that I didn't write anything for Episode IX, and that's because I don't want to speculate on what events will actually happen. (Although apparently I have no problem fictionalizing my Son theory.)
> 
> But I do believe that Ben will be redeemed, one way or another. Star Wars, after all, is all about redemption.

“Everything

That ever was still is, somewhere,

Floating near the surface, nursing

Its hunger for you and me”

_—Tracy K. Smith, “Everything That Ever Was”_

 

_I._

 

The truest thing Ben has in common with his grandfather is the fact that he never had a chance.

This is not to say that the Force did not want him to make a _choice_. It has let them all make that particular choice, more than once, until they get it right. But every Skywalker has made the decision to move towards balance himself.

It has been manipulated before, and corrected its course in response, but never quite like this. Snoke’s twisting of Ben’s heart and steady corruption of his mind are so complete—orchestrated in such a way that the boy struggles to tell the difference between his own thoughts, the urgings of Snoke, and the Force’s attempts to steer him right—that the Force sometimes wonders if Ben will reach that final choice.

It feels him slipping away into the dark and returning, and one day he does not come back.

Oh, but he will.

This darkness he shrouds himself in as Kylo Ren is not his destiny.

 

 

_II._

 

Not so long ago, on a planet that existed outside of space and time, there was a Daughter and Son, Light and Dark, and they destroyed one another.

The Force has vowed it will not happen this way again.

Since the spawning of the universe itself, all of reality has existed in opposites, and if things cannot manage to exist in harmony, they are destroyed—by themselves or by others.

 

(Those who choose a side and use the Force divided are slowly chewed up and then consume the galaxy the way they are consumed, misguided and convinced of their righteousness.)

 

The former Son fully relinquished the light, becoming the Dark rather than merely allowing it to flow through him, as it did on the rest of Mortis. But he had still understood the Force’s aim, as this new Son will through his trials: the Jedi and Sith contribute to the galaxy’s imbalance, and though the first Son knew what to do about this discovery, he could not. 

The second can, and he will not be alone. Together, the Son and Daughter reborn can remind the galaxy of what it is to be balanced, within and without.

Darkness rises, and light to meet it.

 

( _But first darkness must rise._ )

 

 

_III._

 

Some nights are worse than others. Some nights, Ben swears he’s had nightmares since the womb: lava, his family’s past, falling, his future. Nightmares beyond what the visions show him—because though he is an untrained child, he knows deep in his bones that what he sees is true.

His parents try, but even so young he knows they cannot compete with the visions he can’t remember and the voices that aren’t his.

Ben knows he is a target, and he knows he is a danger to them. It does not come as a surprise when his mother and father sit him down and inform him Uncle Luke will be taking him to the new temple for training sooner rather than later.

What they say is that it is time for him to do his part to make the galaxy a safer place, that he can make a difference in ways they cannot.

What he hears is that staying with his parents makes them unsafe, that the Force is a weapon and so is he.

 _How right all three are_ , says a voice he doesn’t want to trust, seeping through his mind like a slow-moving poison.

On the night before Ben is to leave, he dreams of peace, not violence. Instead of an ember burning in his heart, making him itch and want to pick at his chest until it is gone— _he never asked for this_ —there is a soothing ocean lapping away his anxiety and insecurity, putting him at ease.

He dreams—or perhaps he is having a waking vision, because sleep has not been this quiet in years—of a woman that looks like his mother but softer, dressed in blue and radiating kindness. She leans forward and offers him a sad smile, brushing his hair back.

 _Remember we are with you, Ben,_ she says. _Always. We have walked this path before. There is hope in the most desolate of places. Even when you cannot see it in yourself._

Ben clutches these words as tightly as he clings to his mother when he says goodbye.

 

 

_IV._

 

The Dark always lies, except for when it tempers a lie with enough harsh truth that it is swallowed, a bitter reminder that your fears are only a breath removed from reality.

Over years of training, Ben is told this more than once, until it is scoured into his brain. The Dark isolates you when you are surrounded by those who would help if they only knew how. If they could only comprehend.

But here is where his path diverges: he is the one who can’t distinguish the lies from the truth anymore, and he wonders if he ever could, if everything he was ever taught is true and false at once.

This is the part that Ben tells himself.

 

(The woman who told him to hold on seems very far away, here.

 

But he tries to remember her words.)

 

And then one night, he hears a hum. Already on the edge of consciousness he jolts awake, because he knows that sound. It’s a lightsaber. 

It’s not his. 

He looks up to see Master Skywalker—he ceased being Uncle Luke years ago—staring at him with horror in his eyes and, Ben senses, fear in his heart.

_The Dark was right._

He had wanted so desperately to believe that it was wrong about him, that _he_ was wrong about _himself_. That Luke believed there was a reason for hope, too.

That illusion crumbles. So do the walls. The fire and violence and death that have followed him from system to system, consuming his world, erupt upon the temple.

Part of Ben mirrors his uncle’s fear. He wants this. He doesn’t. He is being torn apart.

Something in him breaks as he blazes forward, and falls away.

But is not lost, no. It is tethered to another through the Force. Ben Solo can never be completely lost.

 

 

_V._

 

The Force refuses to grant him the relief of darkness; something shines at the edge of his awareness. He pursues it as relentlessly as he has Skywalker.

It doesn’t lessen until he finds the girl. Except what he feels then is not relief but more conflict, because _she_ is what has pulled him towards the light. Towards her—it has to be. When he looks into her mind, he sees familiar images. Not identical, but enough to recognize a kindred spirit.

Then she escapes, and despite his curiosity, he can’t pursue her.

Han Solo is here.

They meet on the bridge, and the man calls a name he has not heard in a long time.

Ben— _can he be Ben, still?_ —does not expect what happens next: that he truly feels the conflict he only meant to pretend at. That he follows through with the one thing that should seal his fate, stop this flickering between selves.

That he regrets it, almost at once.

But it’s too late, as he said. Han Solo can’t save him.

Neither can he save _her._

He makes quick work of his first opponent and reaches out for the saber. The lightsaber that should be his, a relic of his family’s past.

The Force smiles as it sails past him.

He stares at the girl, rapt. It knows they sense the same thing in her, and their duel reaffirms it. Even defeated, his expression does not change.

She leaves him shaking in the snow, pain barely registering, mind racing.

He should feel humiliated. Instead, it feels almost as if he has found something he wasn’t aware he’d missed.

 

 

_VI._

 

The Supreme Leader is not the first master to feel Ben Solo is not enough of one thing; this much is true. And while in the past he has convinced himself of his utter commitment to darkness, no one else believes.

And neither does he. Not anymore.

Ben tortures himself further when Snoke refers to him as _unbalanced_. He’ll do whatever is necessary, he tells himself—

But that is before he senses his mother on board the Resistance flagship.

This time, having done it once before, the idea of pulling the trigger turns his stomach. And no matter what, despite the urging of the Dark, something inside him _can’t._

He chooses not to. But for every choice a Skywalker makes, the Force makes another for them.

It brings him to Rey, and the connection fascinates him. He wants to _understand._ There has to be a reason for it, and at first all he desires is to figure it out—to control one thing in his life.

Gradually he puts that behind him, and then his interest lies in this other bond he is forming with her. He doesn’t understand the source of this either, but he is already a failure at being light and at being dark. Why wouldn’t he fail to understand?

So Ben tells her the truth. When he tells her to let the past die, he says it it to himself as much as to her, even if he doesn’t yet know how to let go.

And then the Force provides his chance and waits to see if he can take it this time.

He seizes it with both hands: one for the trick, and one for the truth.

The Force watches as they fight, the light and dark briefly united, and then return to old patterns.

Down on the salt planet, he wonders. “Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul?”

Master Skywalker would never change his mind, but he has to ask. Rey is gone. This is his last chance. It only takes one person to hold back the Dark.

 

(It takes time, but Ben learns things his uncle could not grasp.

They are luminous beings, but light can flicker without being extinguished.

Others may rekindle a spark, but you must sustain it.

 

And he is right: it is time for all orders, Sith and Jedi alike, to end.)

 

 

_VII._

 

Ephemeral beings like humans simply forget about cosmic scale and the long, slow arc of the universe. But it has not even been a century since the Force’s plan was set in motion, and yet they have already forgotten that things take time. 

Redemption is a choice that must be made, and made again (if there is time) and again. Like many other facets of life, it is a cycle, a cycle Ben has joined.

There are those that don’t trust him, and Ben understands. He’s committed atrocities. Nothing can change that. But _he_ can change. And he intends to, for the future—if not for forgiveness.

Step by step, he walks into the light and anchors himself. This time, determined to make his own choices, he will not be swayed. He will strive to keep the Force in balance in his heart. There has been enough controlling and being controlled.

 

The Skywalkers’ destinies are fulfilled.

 

But the Force forever hums in want.

 


End file.
